Strange Hooves

Spike runs a wet cloth over the wall where Mike had apparently scorched the human letters “BRB” into it. While he was glad to be Twilight’s number one assistant, Spike does not want to also have to be Mike’s number one assistant. Spike ponders this for a bit, but goes back to work. A ball of bright light appeared behind him. Spike didn’t notice until lightning arched out randomly from it and struck him in the back.

“Ow!”

Spike dropped the cloth and turned around, staring at it. It grew brighter until it suddenly popped like a balloon, with a blinding flash that hurt Spike’s eyes. When he opened them again, he saw Mike standing there. He was looking right at

Spike. Spike asks,

“Where have you been?”

Mike, instead of answering, asks,

“How long have I been gone?”

Spike thinks and answers,

“12 minutes.”

This causes Mike to adopt a silly expression as if he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world. Spike asks cautiously,

“What’s so funny?”

Mike laughs,

“Heehee—It cost four hundred thousand dollars to travel through alternate dimensions… *for twelve seconds*.”

Mike nearly falls over backwards at his own joke with laughter, which Spike is a little annoyed at, because, clearly, this was something to be explained. Mike apologizes. Twilight, who had been drawn into the room by the familiar voices, stares at Mike. She seems relieved. She says,

“Well, you were back soon.”

Mike remembers the note he had left, and stares at it on the wall, looking a little guilty. He mumbles,

“I should clean that up.”

The wet cloth is picked up with Mike’s green telekinesis and is rubbed vigorously against the blackened area, revealing the

wooden wall beneath. She says,

“Well, it is nice to see you again.”

Mike absently replies,

“Good to be seen again. Interdimensional travel is not for the faint of heart.”

Twilight goes slack-jawed, eyes staring off. Mike finishes and disposes of the towel, and sits down in his chair. He looks over

to Twilight, who was still stuck in that flabbergasted position and says,

“Hello?”

Twilight seemed to regain consciousness and shakes her head. She stares over to Mike and starts to fire off questions like a

machinegun would bullets. Mike takes his time and answers as many as he can, reciting the story of how he entered several different versions of Equestria with their own inhabitants identical to the one they were in now, and he explains the glass box metaphor he came up with, but stops himself and raises a hand to his chin, contemplating.

“Actually, it’s not endless stacks of glass boxes at all. That would assume that giant invisible boxes can actually define where

a dimension ends and another one begins. It’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, dimensional-wensional… stuff.”

That was perhaps the worst metaphor, but it’s the closest one I can think of.

“Anywhoo, I was trying to track down the human of that Equestria…”

“What? There were humans in that Equestria too?”

“That’s where our universes branch off from your standard Equestria with no problems or humans in it. A human is put in Equestria for any number of reasons, but the human in question is different every time, so I was trying to find the one of that dimension, and I ran into another you.”

Twilight seems to absorb this somehow. Mike continues.

“I ran into Celestia and Luna of that dimension, and they asked me to find the human. Apparantly he had left the dimension, and had gone to another HIE dimension.”

Twilight interjects.

“HIE?”

Mike explains.

“Human in Equestria. Now, I used my outside vision spell to track him down again, and I saw him in the Everfree forest of the

dimension he went to. So I looked closer, and saw the other human. They were conversing with Lyra, but I noticed something.”

Twilight listens to his every word. Mike says,

“The human that had left the Equestria I was in was looking directly at my point of view. I had thought this was a coincidence at first, but as I shifted my view, he keeps staring at it. I felt myself getting pulled into the dimension he was in, but something interfered. Instead of ending up next to the human, I was in deeper in the Everfree forest.”

Mike pauses, thinking. He continues.

“I was attacked by an Ursa Major.”

Mike has Twilight’s full attention.

“I fought back, but the big bear almost killed me. Luckily, there was the human that pulled me in. He attacked it with a human

weapon, and we joined forces to vanquish the ursa. We succeeded, and we conversed. After that, he sent me here back to this Equestria…”

Mike reels back and forth, obviously queasy. He mutters,

“HeyTwilightIdon’tfeelsogood…”  Mike feels himself fall forward and…*WHUNK*

Curse you, fragile consciousness.

…

Mike is back in his chair, his hat and coat removed. He was wearing a grey, collared t-shirt beneath. Blue jeans were covering his legs, and both Twilight and Spike were hovering over Mike with buckets of water. Twilight asks,

“Should we do it? I mean, it might not work…”

Spike has already dumped the contents of his bucket onto Mike, waking him. He sits perfectly still in the chair, wetted eyes trying to see.

“BUAGRH—“

Twilight had already dumped her bucket, again Mike has to endure these sensations of water wetting him up.

“ENOUGH! THAT’S ENOUGH!”

Mike’s face contorts, trying to move. He sits, there, confused. He suddenly freaks out, saying,

“I CAN’T MOVE. I FEEL LIKE LEAD.”

Mike contorts just a little, but settles down again when his strength fails him. His eyes dart to and fro from Twilight and Spike, and Mike says,

“WHAT DID YOU DO?”

They shake their heads, both saying something along the lines of,

“Nononono We didn’t do anything!”

Spike is struck with inspiration.

“I’ll get Fluttershy! She can help!”

He dashes out the door, glad to not have to see an angry, scared Mike. Mike’s face is wearing an expression of confusion,

frustration, panic, and anger all at once somehow. He seems to calm down a little, and looks over to Twilight, who was trying to absorb the situation. She goes over to Mike, whom is completely relaxed into the chair, and his head leans back into the back of the chair, eyes looking to Twilight as if they cried “Help! Help! I’m unable to move and it doesn’t even make seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeense—“.

Mike instead says,

“Twilight?”

Somehow, he was eerily  calm now.

“Yes, Mike?”

Twilight leans in. Mike’s face scrunches up and he says,

“I need a towel.”

…

Fluttershy and Spike walked fast to where Mike and Twilight was. Spike had found Fluttershy reclining on a bench in the park, told her the scenario, and they were headed back to the library. They came to the door, and Spike knocked on it. A half-minute later, Twilight answers it, and sees the two.

“Hello, guys! Mike hasn’t gone anywhere.”

From inside could be heard the sound of sarcastic laughter.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. HahahahhahHAHAHAAH!” Somehow this sarcastic laughter had changed into real laughter as Mike found hilarity in the situation. So there was that.

Spike and Fluttershy enter the tree, and they step over to Mike. Mike weakly looks back with whatever strength he still had. Fluttershy says,

“Hello there, Mikey.”

Mike mentally cringed. He responds,

“Help, Fluttershy.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My arms and legs won’t move.”

“Let’s see. Twilight, could you gently move him to the floor?”

Twilight gently lifts Mike with her magic and lowers him to the floor, face down. Fluttershy goes then to inspect what possibly

could be the matter and asks,

“Did you get stung by anything recently?”

“No.”

Fluttershy runs a hoof over Mike’s spine and discovers something very wrong.

“Um... Your spine is all twisted up and out of place. This calls for a medical massage.”

Cautiously, Fluttershy presses her hooves on Mike, seeing how he’ll react. He doesn’t, so that gives her reason enough to continue. She did chiropractor work for animals, and that knowledge came useful in this scenario. This, however, was more severe. The spine was way too twisted and warped to be from a natural injury. Still, she started. After one spine *CRACK*ed into place, Mike gives a gasp, then sighs. He mutters something like,

“I can feel my legs now.” His face is calm, but it seemed that he likes this physical treatment, but tries to hide his blushing face by turning away from everypony. He wiggles his legs to show his point. Fluttershy continues, smoothing spines into place, unaware of Mike’s flustered expression. Twilight walks around to make eye contact, but sees the blush. She tries her best to contain her laugh, but she falls over backwards in a laugh that turns her face red, too. She raises her head to see Fluttershy, with her front hooves still on Mike, with Spike behind her, both staring at her. Mike was also staring, with a look that seemed to scream “Don’t tell ‘em whatever you do!”

Twilight sees the message in his eyes and wipes away a tear. She says,

“It’s nothing. Spike, come here. I need you to help me with some chores.”

Spike follows Twilight into the kitchen to start chores, but he steals a look and makes eye contact with Mike, but is gagged and dragged by a purple aura into the kitchen before he could reveal just how funny he finds Mike’s expression and blush to be. Fluttershy shrugs off the recent events and continues, popping and cracking associated with her efforts to repair Mike’s spine. She continues upwards, correcting mistakes until reaching the neck. She then retrieves her hooves. Mike wonders what will happen next until Fluttershy reaches and grabs Mike’s head, twisting it in order to correct the neck, making several disgusting noises.

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH”

This yell brings Twilight and Spike back into the front room, where they see Mike scooting away from Fluttershy, clutching at his neck in horror. To his relief, he was fine, and he’s moving again. So there was that. Fluttershy covered her mouth with her hooves, thinking she’d done something wrong.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did it hurt? I can—“

She was interrupted by Mike hugging Fluttershy. She seems to calm down a little, and returns the hug. He lets go, and raises two fingers on his left hand.

“That’s two I owe you, Shy.”

Fluttershy asked,

“Owe me two what?”

Mike realized what he said, and he replied, scratching the back of his head,

“You saved my skin twice, so I am indebted to you. Twice.”

Fluttershy seems to understand. She says,

“Well, you don’t owe me anything, so there.”

The surprised expression on Mike’s face makes Fluttershy continue.

“Well, I’d do it for anypony, big or small. I just hate to see anypony in pain or unable to move themselves…”

She trails off, looking saddened at the mere thought of it. Mike clutches his chest and says,

“My heart has shattered into three different pieces now, you’re so adorable.”

Now Fluttershy attempts to hide her face from the world, trying desperately to conceal her emerging blush. She quietly says,

“You’re just saying that to be nice.”

Mike shakes his head, and says,

“Eeynope.”

Laughter is heard because of a close imitation to Big Macintosh, but Fluttershy realizes just what Mike said. She says,

“You really mean to say that you think…”

Mike says,

“In a word, yes.”

Twilight and Spike giggled at this, seeing the flustered Fluttershy and meek Mike. They look to each other, appendages to

their respective chins, looking thoughtful, almost sharing the same thought.

Are you pondering what I’m pondering?

Fluttershy dismisses herself saying something along the lines of,

“I need to check on my animal friends.”

Mike sits back in his chair, reading a new Daring Doo book. His thoughts were obviously elsewhere. He’s obviously thinking

about current events. Spike leaves the room, as he guesses Twilight’ll try to talk to Mike about namby-pampy-girly stuff. Sure enough, Twilight pulls up a chair and sits next to Mike, whom despairs a little inside for the upcoming discussion. Twilight adjusts in the chair so she’s facing Mike’s left on her belly, and begins by saying,

“So, Mike.”

Mike reluctantly lowers the book, avoiding eye contact, and says,

“Yes, Twilight?”

She responds,

“Well, I just wanted to know a little more about human-to-human interaction, and I’d also like to see if there are comparisons

between the two, including what I saw between you and Fluttershy.”

Mike gulps.

Nother day nother chapter just comment plz k tnx bai